The long snake
This weekend was Walt's birthday, and it turned out to be a very long one. On Saturday morning Walt noticed some water in the outside hallway; after some investigation, it turned out that one of the pipes going to the sewer was blocked, so all of the water leading out of the building couldn't reach the sewer and consequently was backing up and spilling through other pipes. This set off a massive plumbing crisis that ate up the entire day. The downstairs tenants were on vacation, and it turned out that their sink was backed up and there was water all over their floor. I don't know if it showed up in their apartment because it was closest to the blockage or what, but it was a complete mess. I ended up in their kitchen with a bucket and towels mopping up all of the water (while trying to keep Devon from destroying their kitchen). If they had been home we would have definitely discovered this earlier, since it was their sink that was backing up (although it might have taken us a while to discover the true source, since we probably would have assumed their drain was clogged when it was really a much bigger problem).
Walt's plumbing history is really coming in handy (to his great dismay, I'm sure); this is already the 3rd time we've had an issue with the pipes to the sewer backing up or being clogged. Walt mentioned this to the neighbor, and he said they have to have their drains snaked about twice a year, so apparently it's endemic to this neighborhood (also exacerbated, I'm sure, by the 4" sewer pipe for the entire building -- Walt keeps railing about how small this is and how if this place had been built last year it would probably be twice as big, blah blah). Ugh. At any rate, we had to make an emergency trip to Home Depot (which of course didn't have what we needed) and ultimately ended up at Chu's Supply, the home of the hard-core plumbers. We ended up having to buy this HUGE motorized snake that had a motor on it that, honestly, looked like it could power one of those fan boats you see in the Everglades. It's absolutely monstrous. We also had to pay $500 for the privilege (justifying this by assuming a plumber's weekend fee for this would have been at least this much, and given that our short history in this building has been plagued by sewer problems, I have no doubt we'll be using this thing regularly.
Devon and I went off to the playground to give Walt maximum working room, and she spent a really fun couple of hours on the slide, swings and running around. Someone was giving this huge birthday party at the playground, and Devon of course had no shame in sidling in and trying to snatch things from kids' goodie bags. I have to make a quick comment on the nature of goodie bags and children's birthday parties. We have only been to one birthday party so far, and it was the very lovely one that Vicky and Jon hosted at Stinson Beach's in her mom's palatial pad. I have a strong feeling that this was highly a-typical, since it was unstructured (people were wandering to the beach, playing at the house, and hanging around with no real planned activities), had no structured activities (like going to an amusement park or getting one of those blow-up jumper things, which seem to be de rigueur for birthday parties in SF parks) and no goodie bags. I was talking about birthday parties a bit at my book club, though, and one of the women there who lives in Petaluma went on a rant about goodie bags. Apparently there is a lot of weight associated to goodie bags for guests -- the equivalent of society goodie bags where guests to the Oscars get goodie bags with donated items from fancy manufacturers -- and it's got its claws deep into children's birthday parties. Tricia was saying that it's basically assumed that each guest will get some sort of bag of stuff from the party, and the stakes are high. At any rate, the goodie bags that Devon was going for at this party were very elaborate -- each was made out of some kind of material with the name of the child on it, and they were stuffed with things. One little girl who was talking to me and Devon kept pulling stuff out of this bag like a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat: she had a necklace and bracelet, a bag of Goldfish, a kaleidoscope, an insulated water bottle and on and on. Devon, of course, was trying to get her hands on any number of these items, but I was aghast at it.
Aside from extricating her from the legitimate party guests, however, we had a great time. She's become a little mimicker at the park. We were on the swingset next to another girl; she was talking to her mother and said something about "Daddy," at which point Devon yelled, "Daddy!" Then they got into a sort of call and response on the swings -- Devon would say something and this girl would say it back and vice versa. It was quite interesting. It also gave me some real insight into the power of peer pressure. Devon is already fascinated with older kids and not only mimics what they say but also what they do. Another older girl was climbing up the slide on the sliding-down part, and after sliding down, Devon immediately tried to climb back up in that direction. This also happened a few days ago at another playground when she saw some older kids hanging upside down on the jungle gym. She wanted to hang from the bars and then made me hang her upside down too (which consisted of me holding her upside down, since she's not even close to hanging herself).
By the time we got back Walt was wrapping up his project, which ended up being not only a long session snaking the drain but also cutting pipes and all sorts of horrible work. It truly was an all-day project, but the good news is that the drain is clear. I felt better about paying an arm and a leg for that snake after I learned of the extent of the project, since I'm sure a plumber would have charged us at least that much -- and now we've got super snake for when the pipes inevitably back up again.
Sunday also ended up being shot, at least from Walt's birthday perspective, since he had to work -- the Saturday plumbing crisis had eaten up his planned working time -- so we never had any real birthday celebration. We did get a nice cake, though, and gobbled up a significant portion of it after Devon was in bed. She didn't get to revel in the sugary delight of the Swedish Princess cake, but she did have a couple of fresh figs with dinner, which is more than enough sugar for her.
Walt's plumbing history is really coming in handy (to his great dismay, I'm sure); this is already the 3rd time we've had an issue with the pipes to the sewer backing up or being clogged. Walt mentioned this to the neighbor, and he said they have to have their drains snaked about twice a year, so apparently it's endemic to this neighborhood (also exacerbated, I'm sure, by the 4" sewer pipe for the entire building -- Walt keeps railing about how small this is and how if this place had been built last year it would probably be twice as big, blah blah). Ugh. At any rate, we had to make an emergency trip to Home Depot (which of course didn't have what we needed) and ultimately ended up at Chu's Supply, the home of the hard-core plumbers. We ended up having to buy this HUGE motorized snake that had a motor on it that, honestly, looked like it could power one of those fan boats you see in the Everglades. It's absolutely monstrous. We also had to pay $500 for the privilege (justifying this by assuming a plumber's weekend fee for this would have been at least this much, and given that our short history in this building has been plagued by sewer problems, I have no doubt we'll be using this thing regularly.
Devon and I went off to the playground to give Walt maximum working room, and she spent a really fun couple of hours on the slide, swings and running around. Someone was giving this huge birthday party at the playground, and Devon of course had no shame in sidling in and trying to snatch things from kids' goodie bags. I have to make a quick comment on the nature of goodie bags and children's birthday parties. We have only been to one birthday party so far, and it was the very lovely one that Vicky and Jon hosted at Stinson Beach's in her mom's palatial pad. I have a strong feeling that this was highly a-typical, since it was unstructured (people were wandering to the beach, playing at the house, and hanging around with no real planned activities), had no structured activities (like going to an amusement park or getting one of those blow-up jumper things, which seem to be de rigueur for birthday parties in SF parks) and no goodie bags. I was talking about birthday parties a bit at my book club, though, and one of the women there who lives in Petaluma went on a rant about goodie bags. Apparently there is a lot of weight associated to goodie bags for guests -- the equivalent of society goodie bags where guests to the Oscars get goodie bags with donated items from fancy manufacturers -- and it's got its claws deep into children's birthday parties. Tricia was saying that it's basically assumed that each guest will get some sort of bag of stuff from the party, and the stakes are high. At any rate, the goodie bags that Devon was going for at this party were very elaborate -- each was made out of some kind of material with the name of the child on it, and they were stuffed with things. One little girl who was talking to me and Devon kept pulling stuff out of this bag like a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat: she had a necklace and bracelet, a bag of Goldfish, a kaleidoscope, an insulated water bottle and on and on. Devon, of course, was trying to get her hands on any number of these items, but I was aghast at it.
Aside from extricating her from the legitimate party guests, however, we had a great time. She's become a little mimicker at the park. We were on the swingset next to another girl; she was talking to her mother and said something about "Daddy," at which point Devon yelled, "Daddy!" Then they got into a sort of call and response on the swings -- Devon would say something and this girl would say it back and vice versa. It was quite interesting. It also gave me some real insight into the power of peer pressure. Devon is already fascinated with older kids and not only mimics what they say but also what they do. Another older girl was climbing up the slide on the sliding-down part, and after sliding down, Devon immediately tried to climb back up in that direction. This also happened a few days ago at another playground when she saw some older kids hanging upside down on the jungle gym. She wanted to hang from the bars and then made me hang her upside down too (which consisted of me holding her upside down, since she's not even close to hanging herself).
By the time we got back Walt was wrapping up his project, which ended up being not only a long session snaking the drain but also cutting pipes and all sorts of horrible work. It truly was an all-day project, but the good news is that the drain is clear. I felt better about paying an arm and a leg for that snake after I learned of the extent of the project, since I'm sure a plumber would have charged us at least that much -- and now we've got super snake for when the pipes inevitably back up again.
Sunday also ended up being shot, at least from Walt's birthday perspective, since he had to work -- the Saturday plumbing crisis had eaten up his planned working time -- so we never had any real birthday celebration. We did get a nice cake, though, and gobbled up a significant portion of it after Devon was in bed. She didn't get to revel in the sugary delight of the Swedish Princess cake, but she did have a couple of fresh figs with dinner, which is more than enough sugar for her.
posted by Devon Szalva at
11:10 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home